Mayor006

Just wanted to mention this again.  First year show here in Chattanooga.  Shaping up to be a great show with some big names, convention exclusives, and there will be someone available to witness for CGC SS!

It's all subjective, but personally mine falls more like this:

Low grade - anything 4.5 and below

Mid grade - 5.0 - 8.5

High grade - 9.0 up

Congrats! I know you've been working on that one for a while!

1 hour ago, Callaway29 said:

I don’t know how y’all keep track of times for the various steps, since CGC overwrites old status with new status vs providing a chronological record. Anyways, have a few with an invoice date of late August still sitting at received, and I always ship next day from when I confirm my order (which I think is what invoice date represents). So basically 2 months and they haven’t even looked at them...par for the course I suppose...

lots of people keep excel spreadsheets detailing status updates.  Sometimes helps in projecting when to expect books back based on historical data.

If I remember right, USPS only goes up to $5k on insurance.  You'd have to have third party most likely to cover anything larger.

14 hours ago, shortboxed said:

This thread might be biased, but if I could only travel to one show, should I go to Baltimore or Heroes? I'm in San Francisco, so it's expensive to travel to the east coast for a comic con. The past 2 years I've gone to Baltimore and it's been amazing, so I'm totally fine with going back for a 3rd  

Grass is always greener syndrome.  I always go to Heroes and want to try Baltimore once, so I'm thinking 2019 might be the year.  You will not be disappointed with Heroes if you decide to try it out. 

Hmmm, slabbed apple pie.....I wonder what that's going to look like in about 6 weeks.... Congrats on your haul!

New show coming to Chattanooga, TN in November.  I know they have a few spots available for vendors if anyone is close and wants to set up and have lined up some nice guests!

www.epikcomicshow.com

14 hours ago, kav said:

Ps Green Lantern-you realize you have a power ring that can deflect eggs, right?

Must have been the yolks! Back then nothing worked on yellow!

The whole thing just screams to me "too little too late", but maybe not.  If they do come back it will be nothing like it was before.  I think the number of physical stores will be minimal and they will take on an Amazon-like presence.

One thing I would say about having them slabbed is it gives the buyer an idea of just how much restoration there is that may or may not come across in descriptions and pictures alone.  

Who knows? They might own the house next door and just have inherited it from a family member.  Trading it for a few keys certainly would sound crazy but throw the numbers around and it could be feasible!

Oh and here's a new one.....

So I get the package from ComicLink and it feels a little light to be holding two slabs to me.  I open it up and it just has the Starslayer book.  I look at the invoice with it and it only has the Starslayer on it.  I know for a fact I was charged for both books, I can see it on my credit card charges on the website.  I call them up and they let me know that the Thor 337 was an accidental listing! It had been sold in a previous auction and has somehow been relisted and it wasn't discovered until time to ship to me.  I'm sure with the sheer number of books they have come through there it happens, but #1, please refund me my money for the phantom book I paid for, and #2 why is it that I had to be the lucky one?

More like buy the toy boat from Wal-mart!

7 minutes ago, Ryan. said:

People are wildly over-exaggerating the amount of pre-show dealing that occurs.

I guess that all depends on the show, and whether or not you have any books the other dealers want at the time.  I cited an example from a show I witnessed this weekend.

I've done this with ComicLink very recently.  I took 51 books ranging in grades that I thought had some potential for making money all the way down to the ones I just can't stand to have taking up anymore space in my collection.  I knew exactly how much I had in them and what I felt they were worth overall.  What you need to ask yourself is will you be ok with the prices you get if they don't meet your expectations just because it saves you a ton of personal time.  Me personally I was perfectly fine with it.  I cleared out two CGC boxes of books out of my stuff, made back almost exactly what I had in them (seriously, like $4 profit), and used the money to pay for acquisitions at Heroes.  Remeber though, these were mostly books that didn't make the grade or lost favor in the collection. Only a couple of "hot" books.

I would also say you've already answered your own question.  "It depends".  Each book is different, how hot is it, how many people are actually looking for it, how many people are watching a football game instead of my auction ending, it just keeps going.  If you have you have a couple of hundred slabs why not throw 50 on the bay, and 50 on CLink and compare your results.  Then whatever worked best, do that with the remaining 100.  If you had two of every book in the exact same condition that would be an awesome comparison, but not likely I know.  

52 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

And I assume you have a huge rush of dealers (or staff of dealers) who hit your booth right at the opening and clear out all the good deals before the "collectors" have a chance to find your booth and look over your books.  It does equalize things a bit but all it does is cause a feeding frenzy at your booth with most deals being gobbled up by other dealers.  Dealers have big pockets and as long as you get your asking prices then I don't see why you make it difficult for people to spend money at your booth. 

So let's say all the collectors are hitting the door and they look around and see a feeding frenzy around one dealer.  Don't you think you would at least be intrigued?  I'd be heading straight for that dealer to see whats all the hubbub.  Nothing else, it's good opening advertising!

I don't know if this example really fits the question, but reading through the thread made me think of something I witnessed and discussed with a couple of sellers this weekend at a tiny show.  One guy has an ungraded Hulk 181 that is in decent shape, nothing high grade, but nice nonetheless.  By the time I get to his booth at 10:05 (show opened at 10 am) he's already had at least three offers and has two people that want to work something out with him.  Now after talking to the original seller later in the day he tells me all of the offers came from dealers in the room and that he sold the book at guide price based on what they determined the grade to be.  The buyer/dealer plans on pressing and slabbing and then selling for nearly double guide (based on what the seller said).  If all this buying and selling between dealers is happening before the show even opens and the dealers are the ones continuously driving up the pricing, how much longer can this keep up? Nothing new I guess, but still just makes you wonder.

On 7/31/2018 at 1:07 PM, F For Fake said:

I hoard, but only on dirt cheap books that I think are cool. For instance, I buy every copy of Ghost Rider 15 I can find, but I won't pay more than $1 for it. But if it's a buck or less, bring 'em on, I'll buy 'em! Because, you know, glow in the dark flaming skull. What's not to like?

Same with any Dave Stevens, Adam Hughes, Brian Bolland or Mike Mignola covers I find for a buck or less, though those aren't nearly as plentiful as they once were.

Why do I do it? I dunno, I just like the books a lot, and for a buck or less, I figure why not? With some books, it's because they display well in my comic racks, and I can set them out in the racks without worrying that a valuable book is going to be damaged. A comic rack full of Ghost Rider 15 looks pretty cool, and I don't have to sweat it if they get bent, dusty, whatever.

This is exactly how I wound up with a short box of Dave Stevens, a short box of Campbell, and a short box of Adam Hughes at one time.  I think I've got it down to maybe a box and a half now.

Upgraded my Starslayer 2 to 9.8 and picked up a Thor 337 9.6 which is a book I've bought, sold, bought, sold it seems several times.  I think I'm going to hold on to it at this point.  And thank you to everyone that bid on my books.  I had 51 books in the auction and I was worried overall I would lose a lot of money on them because for the most part they were nice books but not all of them were 9.8 or keys.  I sometimes feel like books get overlooked if they don't fit into one of those categories.  At the final tally it looks like after Comiclink takes their piece of the action I will make a whopping $2.66 over what I had in them!  

I put 52 books in this one, you guys aren't bidding enough! 

Made a couple of feeble bids last night.  One surprised me a bit just because I thought it was a realistic bid on a book no-one would care about, but I was outbid on.  Might try a little harder tonight

@Madman1138 kept us updated of his grabs all through the weekend so it was almost like being there!  I did wind up picking up a couple of sketch covers late in the game without attending. 

@Octavius Sent you a PM

On 7/20/2018 at 9:34 PM, ivdyer said:

The one cover he was itching to do

It came out great! Glad to see the artwork finally get put to the signature!

This was the weirdest Heroes yet for me.  I've been coming for years and I typically drop off a CGC universal order, get some Signature Series, set up and pick up several commissions, and look for some books that fill some holes in the collection.  I wound up having to work Friday so not arriving until Saturday my game-plan completely changed.  I walked in and immediately dropped off my universal CGC order before the line got crazy. Next stop, dropped off 50 books with ComicLink and got my advance that basically gave me my funds for the show.  I then picked up two left over original art commissions from prior years shows (one from the previous and one from 2 years prior) that the artists finally got around to finishing.  From there I was going to try and pick up a couple of keys but I ran by the Hero Initiative booth and started talking to Adam Warren.  Next thing I knew I bought an original art cover from him and more or less blew through my budget for the books I was planning on buying (sorry guys!).  I walked around and visited a few people, took some pictures and ate some Fuel.  The auction that night was the same as always, and I don't know why I continue to go to it. Sometimes there are a few deals but for the most part everything goes for outrageous pricing. I sat there with my laptop and edited pictures while it was going on. The Calvin and Hobbes piece going to Tony Harris was interesting for sure, but that's a whole other conversation.  The next morning I woke up early and decided instead of waiting three hours for the show to open I would just drive home and spend Fathers' day with my kids so I did. 

Longer story short, I think if I don't line everything up ahead of time commission-wise I'm screwed by Saturday so not much point.  NO Signature series this time. I'm glad I made Adam Warren's show by buying that cover, he said so himself, but it meant I wasn't going to be grabbing some books I was hoping to pick up.  I'm seriously thinking about making this a Thursday/Friday show next year and helping a local shop I know set up in return for a badge on Friday and then driving home after the show ends that night.  I'm usually looking to spend about $500 - $1k and I can do that in a day easy at this show.